This article was downloaded by: [University of Kiel]On: 26 October 2014, At: 06:34Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number:1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street,London W1T 3JH, UK

Discourse ProcessesPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hdsp20

Children's conversationalcompetence with theirparentsAnthony D. Pellegrini a , Gene H. Brody a &Zolinda Stoneman ba Institute for Behavioral Research , Universityof Georgia , Athens, GA, 30602b University of Georgia ,Published online: 11 Nov 2009.

To cite this article: Anthony D. Pellegrini , Gene H. Brody & Zolinda Stoneman(1987) Children's conversational competence with their parents, DiscourseProcesses, 10:1, 93-106, DOI: 10.1080/01638538709544661

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01638538709544661

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of allthe information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on ourplatform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensorsmake no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy,completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Anyopinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions andviews of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor& Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon andshould be independently verified with primary sources of information.Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilitieswhatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly inconnection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private studypurposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution,reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of accessand use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f K

iel]

at 0

6:34

26

Oct

ober

201

4

DISCOURSE PROCESSES 10, 93-106 (1987)

Children's ConversationalCompetence with Their Parents

ANTHONY D. PELLEGRINI

GENE H. BRODY

ZOLINDA STONEMAN

University of Georgia

This study examined preschool children's ability to follow Grice's maxims of conversa-tion while conversing with their parents, as well as parents' reactions to the children'sviolations of the maxims. Eighteen children from each of three age groups (2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds) were observed on three occasions: while interacting with their mothers, withtheir fathers, and with both parents. Results indicate that children's violations decreasedwith age. These results are discussed in terms of the younger children's inability to usetheir knowledge of the maxims to mediate their discourse production. In the dyadiccontexts, fathers more than mothers, assumed a directive role in response to children'sviolations. In the triadic context there were no between-parent differences regardingreactions to children's violations. Contextual results are discussed in terms of interactionaltheory wherein parents assume different interactional roles in different contexts.

During the past 20 years researchers interested in children's linguistic processeshave made significant progress in describing the development of the syntactic(Maratsos, 1983) and semantic (Clark, 1983) aspects of language. More re-cently, researchers in the area of child language have begun to investigate chil-dren's acquisition of pragmatic aspects of language (see Shatz, 1983, for areview). Generally, the pragmatic aspect of language is concerned with the rulesgoverning the conveyance of meaning in social contexts (Levinson, 1983;Wilkinson, Wilkinson, Spinelli, & Chiang, 1984). In examining pragmatics,then, researchers have begun to determine children's ability to convey meaningconversationally in different social contexts. In the present paper we examinedthe development of children's ability to follow one set of pragmatic rules,Grice's (1975) conversational maxims, and parents' reactions to children's vio-lations of these maxims.

Grice (1975), a philosopher of language, has suggested that in order to conveymeaning conversationally interlocutors must cooperate with each other. He oper-

Part of this research was supported while the first author was a Sarah H. Moss Fellow at theUniversity of Sheffield, Department of Psychology. We acknowledge Bruce Britton (UGA), KevinConnolly, John Elliot, and Margaret Martlew (all of Sheffield), and anonymous reviewers for theircritical comments on this paper.

Requests for reprints should be addressed to the first or second author at the Institute forBehavioral Research, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602.

93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f K

iel]

at 0

6:34

26

Oct

ober

201

4

94 PELLEGRINI, BRODY, AND STONEMAN

ationalized this cooperative principle in terms of four conversational maxims:quantity, quality, relation, and manner. The quantity maxim requires that contri-butions to conversations be as informative as necessary, but not overly infor-mative. For example, if a father asks his son where he left the lawn mower, theson is socially obliged to give an informative answer: "In the backyard." Themaxim is violated if the son does not answer or gives too much information (e.g.,"It is in the backyard of our house here on Morton Road, in Athens, GA30605."). With young children, this maxim is typically violated when childrendo not provide enough information. For example, if a parent poses a question,"Where's this go?", and the child does not answer and continues to play withhis toy, not attending to the parent, the quantity maxim would be violated. Thequality maxim requires that contributions to conversations be truthful, sincelying hinders the conveyance of information. In the present study only lies anddeceptions were coded as quality violations (Levinson, 1983). The relation max-im requires that contributions be relevant to the current topic of the conversation.For example, if two people are discussing how to make cheesecake and one says,"My car takes four quarts of oil at a change," the relation maxim is violatedbecause oil changes in cars are not relevant to making cheesecake. In the presentstudy, we coded an utterance as a relation maxim if the child's utterance was nottopically related to the preceeding utterances. If a conversational boundary mark-er (e.g., "OK," "Right") was included in the child's utterance it was not codedas a violation; the child was probably initiating a new topic. According to themanner maxim, contributions should be made clearly and with reasonable dis-patch, being neither ambiguous, obscure, nor verbose. For this maxim we wereconcerned with the orderliness of the message (Levinson, 1983). That is, to whatextent did the content of a child's utterance follow a logical sequence. Forexample, "Feed the doll and make dinner" is a violation because dinner must bemade before the doll can be fed. Grice (1975) argued that these maxims areuniversals governing conversational behavior. Mature speakers tend to followthese maxims in order to engage in cooperative conversation; however, bothadults and children occasionally violate them. With adults, such violations areoften deliberate, as in the case of irony. Children's violations, however, maystem from lack of knowledge of the maxim or an inability to apply their knowl-edge of them.

The experimental research on young children's knowledge of conversationalmaxims has been limited to examinations of their ability to recognize and explainmaxim violations (e.g., Ackerman, 1981). In these research projects childrenwere exposed to a number of experimentally presented utterances and wereexpected to discriminate between those which violated and those which did notviolate maxims. Results indicated that children as young as kindergarten agewere able to discriminate between these two forms of utterances. Further evi-dence suggests that 2-year-olds expect interlocutors to follow aspects of thecooperative principle (Shatz, 1983), implying that young children have some

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f K

iel]

at 0

6:34

26

Oct

ober

201

4

MAXIMS 95

knowledge of the principle. This point is further supported by the work ofBloom, Rociassarlo, and Hood (1976). They found that young children re-sponded contingently to certain forms of utterances and that this ability improvedacross the preschool period.

Researchers have examined aspects of children's language production whichare related to Grice's maxims, but not their ability to follow the maxims per se.For example, Garvey (1977, 1979) examined children's contingency responsesand found that, by 3 years of age, children respond appropriately to specificquestions. The ability to produce rule-governed discourse, however, seems todevelop across the preschool period. Further, children's ability to use theirknowledge of conversational rules to govern their productive discourse may beaffected by the information processing demands of particular communicativesituations (Shatz, 1978, 1983). Increased demand may result in children notbeing able to apply their pragmatic knowledge. For example, if children mustcommunicate about a cognitively demanding topic in an unfamiliar situation, alarge part of their cognitive capacity may be allocated to processing these con-textual demands, with fewer cognitive resources available for them to apply theirknowledge of the maxims to their discourse production. In familiar and unde-manding situations, children do not have to allocate as much processing capacityto decoding contextual demands; thus, cognitive capacity can be used for theapplication of pragmatic knowledge.

The first objective of this study was to examine preschool children's vio-lations of Grice's maxims during discourse with their parents. Despite the wide-spread acceptance of the notion that mature speakers follow Grice's maxims, nosystematic study has been conducted on the development of children's ability tofollow them. The present study, then, will add to the rather sparse literature ondevelopmental pragmatics. We would expect, following the previous research onchildren's ability to detect violations (Ackerman, 1981) and to produce pragmat-ically appropriate utterances (Bloom et al., 1976; Pellegrini, 1981; Shatz, 1978,1983), that children will produce fewer conversational violations as a function ofincreased age.

We were also interested in the ways in which parents reacted to children'sviolations of conversational maxims, whether they reacted to or ignored them.To our knowledge, this question has not been empirically examined. Parents'reactions to children's violations of another aspect of language, syntax, has beenextensively examined (see Maratsos, 1983, for a review). Results suggest thatparents do not correct syntax but do react to content violations. Since contentviolations, such as giving false information, can also violate conversationalmaxims, parents may react similarly to children's violations of the maxims.Thus, the second objective of the present study was to examine parents' reactionsto children's violations of conversational maxims.

The literature concerning parents' socialization of their children suggests thatdifferences exist in parents' responses to their children's performance (Block,

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f K

iel]

at 0

6:34

26

Oct

ober

201

4

96 PELLEGRINI, BRODY, AND STONEMAN

1983; Huston, 1983; Maccoby, 1980). It is hypothesized that parents are moreconcerned with the general performance of their sons than of their daughters(Block, 1983). In addition, fathers are hypothesized to be more concerned withsons' performance than are mothers. With specific reference to parents' reactionsto children's communicative performance, Block (1983) suggests that parentsreact more contingently to boys' vocalizations than to those of girls'. This bodyof research suggests that parents, especially fathers, will respond to sons' vio-lations more than to daughters' violations because they are more concerned withsons' performance. Recent experimental work, however, suggests that parentsinteract with their sons in a similar way as they do with their daughters (e.g.,Pellegrini, Sigel, & Brody, 1985a, 1985b). For this reason we will not examinethe effects of children's gender on parents' reactions to children's violations. Wewill however, examine between parent differences.

The ways in which parents respond to children's language also varies accord-ing to the context of the interaction. Mothers and fathers respond to children'slanguage differently in dyadic contexts (i.e., mother or father, and child) thanthey do in triadic contexts (i.e., mother, father, and child). In dyadic contexts,mothers tend to be playful whereas fathers tend to be directive (Clarke-Stewart,1978; Stoneman & Brody, 1981). In triads, however, fathers tend to becomemore playful and less directive (Clarke-Stewart, 1978; Stoneman & Brody,1981). Thus, we expect interactional context differences (i.e., dyadic vs. triadic)in the ways parents react to children's violations: Within triads we do not expectbetween-parent differences; however, in dyads parent differences should be ob-served. The third objective of the study, therefore, was to compare parents'reactions to children's violations as a function of different interactional contexts.

To summarize, the present study contained three objectives. First, we as-sessed the extent to which children's violations of conversational maxims de-creased as a function of increased age. Second, we examined each parents'reactions to children's violations of conversational maxims. Third, we comparedparent's reactions to children's violations in dyadic and triadic interactionalcontexts.

METHODS

SubjectsEighteen children in each of three age groups (2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds) partici-pated in the study with their mothers and fathers. The mean length utterance(MLU) for each age group was as follows: 2-year-olds, 2.49; 3-year-olds, 3.25;4-year-olds, 4.73. MLU was defined as the total number of morphemes dividedby the total number of utterances (Brown, 1973). MLU was computed by ran-domly sampling 30 utterances from each child in each of the three contexts. Anequal number (nine) of boys and girls from each age group were included. Allfamilies were white and middle class.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f K

iel]

at 0

6:34

26

Oct

ober

201

4

MAXIMS 97

ProcedureEach child was observed during three 15-min play sessions, one with mother,one with father, and one with both parents. The observations occurred 1 weekapart. The order in which children were observed with each parent was randomlycounterbalanced, without restrictions: The families were observed in a comfort-able living room setting which was familiar to all participants. A standard set oftoys familiar to the children was available in the room. Families were instructedto play with the toys as they wished. The same set of toys was available to thefamilies during each session. All parents began the observation sessions byinviting the children "to play" with them and the toys.

Data collection began after the family members had been in the room for 3min to allow for accommodation to the setting. All sessions were audiorecordedand verbal interactions were subsequently transcribed from these tapes.

Dependent MeasuresChildren's utterances were classified according to the conversational maximsviolated. Each parent's utterances were classified according to the way in whichthey reacted to the children's violations of conversational maxims. Transformedrelative frequency scores were analyzed. The operational definitions of each ofthese dependent measures follow.

Children's Violations of Conversational MaximsThe conversational maxims coded were based on those proposed by Grice(1975). They are as follows:

1. Quantity: Utterances should be as informative as the situation requires, butthe contribution should not convey more information than is needed. Forexample, in the present study a father asked his daughter who was playingwith a doll, "Which is your favorite animal?" The child did not verballyrespond and continued playing with a doll; the child did not supply theinformation requested. As such, this is a violation because the child did nottake her turn to talk. Quantity violations were coded only when childrenwere obligated to supply a response.

2. Quality: Utterances should not be false, and one should not make statementsfor which there is no evidence. Only utterances viewed as lies or deceptivewere coded as quality violations. For example, a child said to his father,"Mommy was here before." In this case the child's mother was not ob-served before so the utterance was coded as a quality violation.

3. Relation: Utterances should be relevant to the topic of discourse. An utter-ance was coded as a relation violation if it was not topically related to thepreceeding utterances (i.e., no lexical ties) and if there were no conversa-tional boundary markers present. Conversational boundary markers areoften used to initiate new topics and that is not a relation violation. For

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f K

iel]

at 0

6:34

26

Oct

ober

201

4

98 PELLEGRINI, BRODY, AND STONEMAN

example, a father was telling his son about a ball game and the child said toan animal, "No Grumpy!"

4. Manner: Utterances should be brief and orderly, neither obscure nor ambig-uous. An utterance was coded as a violation of the manner maxim if itviolated logical sequence expectations. For example, a child said to hisfather, "Let's go shopping and make a list." Lists are usually drawn upbefore one goes shopping; thus, this utterance violates the manner maxim.

Children's violations of conversational maxims were analyzed in two ways:total number of violations and violations of individual maxims. Total number ofviolations is the sum of all violations a child made. Violations of an individualmaxim equals the number of violations for each individual maxim. Both total andindividual maxim violations were transformed to relative frequency scores (theratio of a violation to total words) and then to arc-sine scores in order to controlfor verbosity and to normalize the scores (Winer, 1971).

Parents' Reactions to Children's ViolationsReactions to violations were coded as follows:

No reaction: A child committed a violation to which the parent did notrespond. That is, the parent either continued on a related topic or changedtopic. For example, "Where's this go?" was not responded to by thechild and the parent says, "I think I'll try another one."

Repetition: Parent repeated a child's violation. For example, children said"Yuck," "Poop," and "Dog" and the parent said, "Yuck, "Poop,"and "Dog," respectively. Obviously, parents cannot use this strategy inresponse to violations where children do not respond.

Clarification: Parent questioned the violation or rephrased the violation.Examples include: A child said "My teacher's really not Miss Jones" andthe parents questioned it with, "Not really Miss Jones?"; a child said " Ididn't like the soup, you know," while playing with the toys and a parentsaid "What made you think of that?"; a child said "I 'm really Beau" andhis parent said "Who's Beau?"

Models/corrects: Parent modeled correct form of a child's violation. Exam-ples include: A child said of a duck, "What a nice birdy" and the parentsays "It's a nice duck"; a child didn't answer a parent's question "What'sthis?" and the parent provided the correct answer, "It's a dinosaur."

Two sets of scores for individual parents' reactions in dyads were calculated,including the sum of each parents' reactions (i.e., the sum of clarification,repetition, and modeling) and parents' individual reaction category scores. Inboth cases, scores were first transformed to relative frequency scores (the ratio ofthe reaction categories to the total number of errors made by each child) in order

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f K

iel]

at 0

6:34

26

Oct

ober

201

4

MAXIMS 99

to control for children's different error rates, then to arc-sine scores in order tonormalize the scores (Winer, 1971).

Each violation and the way in which each parent in the dyads reacted wascoded according to one of the categories noted above. The scoring of eachviolation and each reaction was mutually exclusive. Reliability for the dependentmeasures was established by recoding 20 randomly chosen protocols. The per-centage of agreement between the two codings from .the transcripts was 94% forviolations and 97% for the manner of reaction.

RESULTS

In the present study we focused on three objectives: first, the extent to whichchildren's violations of conversational maxims decreased as a function of in-creased age was assessed; second, parents' reactions to their children's violationswere examined; and third, the extent to which interactional contexts affectedparents' reactions to children's violations was determined.

Children's ViolationsThe effect of age on children's violations of conversational maxims was analyzedwith separate analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs), with age as the independentvariable, on individual violation categories and on the sum of all violations. Wecovaried MLU and initiations to control them as possible confounds of children'sability to apply their knowledge of the maxims as a function of age. Students'Newman-Keuls procedure, at the .05 level, was used for the post hoc com-parisons. The descriptive statistics for the individual and total violations, by age,can be found in Table 1.

Children's Total Violations. Children appear to produce fewer violationswith age. The one-way ANCOVA on the total number of violations detected asignificant effect for age, F(2,162) = 4.53, p < .01. Two-year-olds generatedsignificantly more violations than either 3- or 4-year-olds.

TABLE 1Violations of Conversational Maxims by Children's Age

QuantityQualityRelationMannerTotal ViolationsTotal Utterances

2-year

M

13.14.16

4.382.01

19.70203.47

-olds

SD

10.20.63

3.763.207.79

68.02

3-year-olds

M

6.550.002.501.36

10.41315.69

SD

4.520.002.111.898.52

101.53

4-year-olds

M

7.76.01

3.271.91

12.96327.67

SD

5.13.08

2.382.44

10.0099.41

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f K

iel]

at 0

6:34

26

Oct

ober

201

4

100 PELLEGRINI, BRODY, AND STONEMAN

Children's Violations of Individual Maxims. Age also had a significanteffect on two types of violations: quantity, F(2,162) = 14.31, p < .0001, andrelation, F (2, 162) = 3.91, p < .025. Two-year-olds generated significantlymore violations in both categories than either 3- or 4-year-olds. Younger childrenappeared to have more difficulty than older children in giving enough informa-tion and making relevant contributions.

Parents' Reactions to ViolationsIndividual parents' in dyads and the average of the two parents' in triads reac-tions to children's violations of conversational maxims were classified as: noreaction, clarification of the violation, repetition of the violation, or modeling thecorrect response. Parents' reactions to violations are displayed in Table 2.

An interactional content (3: mother, father, both parents) X sex of child (2) Xage of child (3: 2-, 3-, and 4-years-old) ANOVA was calculated on each of thesubcategories of parental reactions and on the sum of their reactions (excludingno response). Students' Newman-Keuls procedure, at .05, was used for all posthoc comparisons.

No Reaction. The no reaction category was analyzed with an age (3) xinteractional context (3) repeated measures ANOVA; the second factor wasrepeated. A significant main effect for age was observed, F (2, 162) = 5.66, p< .004. Parents, in both dyads and triads, withheld reactions more frequentlyfrom the 3- and 4-year-olds than from the 2-year-olds.

Parents' total reactions (i.e., the sum of the categories: clarification, repeti-

TABLE 2Parents' Reactions to Children's Violations by Context x Age

Mother-Child2-year-old3-year-old4-year-old

Father-Child2-year-old3-year-old4-year-o d

Triad (average2-year-old3-year-old4-year-old

No Reaction

M

11.167.955.76

8.006.259.47

parents)4.062.564.50

SD

7.004.283.96

8.026.326.60

2.611.542.55

Clarifi-cation

M

5.883.552.82

5.613.514.70

2.661.172.17

SD

5.802.812.78

5.133.043.61

3.151.693.89

Repeat

M

1.11.80.11

3.55.80.47

0.720.220.20

SD

1.131.57.33

2.741.15

.79

1.000.220.47

Model

M

1.00.55.58

1.721.252.00

0.800.690.20

SD

1.37.82

1.69

2.602.712.31

1.110.350.59

TotalReactions

M

7.994.903.51

10.885.207.17

4.191.602.58

SD

8.375.204.79

10.476.906.71

4.342.064.34

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f K

iel]

at 0

6:34

26

Oct

ober

201

4

MAXIMS 101

tion and modeling) were analyzed with an age (3) x interactional context (3)repeated-measures ANOVA. An interactibnal context effect, F (2, 164) =52.15, p < .0001, was observed. Fathers in dyads reacted significantly moreoften than mothers in dyads who, in turn, reacted more than the average ofparents in triads.

The different ways in which parents reacted to children's violations wereanalyzed with separate age (3) x interactional context (3) repeated-measuresANOVAs for each reaction category. In dyads individual parent's reaction wasexamined while in the triads parents' reactions were averaged.

Clarification. A significant main effect was observed for interactional con-text, F (2, 164) = 36.39, p < .0001, on the clarification reaction category. Bothmothers and fathers in dyads posed significantly more clarifications than parentsin triads.

Repetition. For this category, significant main effects for both age, F (2, 162)= 9.24, p < .0002, and interactional context, F (2, 162) = 19.70, p < .0001,as well as significant age X context interaction were observed, F (4, 162) =4.83, p < .001. The main effects were examined in light of their interaction witheach other. At all age levels each parent in dyads repeated more than both parentsin triads. Fathers in dyads with 2-year-olds repeated more than mothers in dyadswith 2-year-olds.

Modeling. A significant interactional context effect was observed for themodeling category, F (2, 164) = 7.42, p < .0008. Fathers in dyads gavesignificantly more modeled responses than did mothers in dyads, who in turnmodeled more than the average of parents in triads.

Parental Comparisons in the Triadic ContextIndividual parents' reactions to children's violations in the triadic context wereanalyzed separately. The dependent measures included: no reactions, totalnumber of reactions, and individual reaction categories. Individual parents' reac-tions to violations within the triadic context were analyzed first with an age (3) Xparent (2) ANOVA. The separate dependent variables were parent's reactions toviolations. The means and standard deviations for these analyses are presented inTable 3.

For all of the reaction categories there were no between-parent differences.For the repeat and model categories there was a significant age effect, F (2,109)= 3.91, p < .02, and F (2,109) = 3.46, p < .03, respectively. For bothmeasures parents used more with the 2-year-olds than with 3- and 4-year-olds.We tend to minimize these age effects because they were observed in only twoout of five categories and on two interrelated measures.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f K

iel]

at 0

6:34

26

Oct

ober

201

4

102 PELLEGRINI, BRODY, AND STONEMAN

TABLE 3Individual Parents' Reactions to Children's Violations Within the Triadic Context

2-year-oldsMotherFather

3-year-oldsMotherFather

4-year-oldsMotherFather

No Reaction

M

4.533.59

2.352.68

4.744.27

SD

5.114.00

2.753.18

5.014.98

Clarification

M

y.n2.05

1.55.80

2.002.35

SD

3.932.04

2.031.19

2.804.83

Repeat

M

.88

.55

.35

.10

.23

.17

SD

1.02.98

.93

.30

.56

.39

Model

M

.94

.66

.35

.05

.11

.29

SO

1.051.18

.67

.22

.33

.77

TotalReactions

M

5.113.27

2.25.95

2.352.82

SD

5.033.65

2.421.38

2.825.54

DISCUSSION

In this paper we examined the extent to which preschool children followed rulesof conversation in discourse with their parents. We also examined the ways inwhich parents reacted to children's violations of these maxims. The resultsgenerally supported previous empirical work (e.g., Ackerman, 1981) whichsuggested that children violate these maxims less frequently with age and thatparents interact differently with their children depending on the interactionalcontext (e.g., Stoneman & Brody, 1981).

The first objective of the study was to examine the extent to which pre-schoolers' followed Grice's maxims of conversation. Children 2 years of age andolder do not violate the quality and manner maxims frequently. However, chil-dren's violations of the quantity and relation maxims decreased with age, as theyimproved in their ability to give enough information and to keep their contribu-tions relevant to the topic of discourse. Violations of the quantity maxim typ-ically involved children's lack of response to preceding utterances. For example,a father said to his son, "This baby doll is silly." His son did not respondverbally. The father followed this silence with a repetition of his initial utterance,"This doll is silly." Again, the child did not respond. When the children didrespond, they often did so irrelevantly (resulting in relation violations). Forexample, a mother asked her son, "Do you enjoy playing with these toys?" Theson responded, "Gimme that." These results are consistent with previous analy-ses of children's discourse which suggest that 2- and 3-year-olds do not respondcontingently to certain utterances (e.g., Bloom et al., 1976; Dore, 1977; Garvey,1977; Steffenson, 1978). When children violated the quantity maxim by notresponding, they may not have realized that they were obliged to respond to a

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f K

iel]

at 0

6:34

26

Oct

ober

201

4

MAXIMS 103

particular form of utterance. Two-year-olds' increased likeliness to respond toone form of utterance more than another, that is, questions more than statements,illustrates this point (Bloom et al., 1976). When children responded irrelevantly,they seemed to recognize their social obligation to respond to certain forms ofutterances (such as questions) but may not have understood the semantic de-mands of the preceeding utterance well enough to respond appropriately. Morework is necessary to identify the specific types of initiations which result inchildren's quantity and relation violations.

A possible limitation of our analyses of children's communicative compe-tence was our reliance on their verbal behavior. We did not analyze nonverbalbehavior, though it is often used, especially by young children, as anotherchannel through which to convey meaning. We examined only verbal behaviorbecause the ability to convey meaning linguistically is a developmental hallmarkof the early childhood period (Pellegrini, 1986; Pellegrini, Galda, & Rubin,1984). During this period children learn to lexicalize meaning, and rely less uponnonverbal cues to convey meaning.

The second objective of the study was to examine parents' reactions to chil-dren's violations. Parents reacted differentially to children's violations of themaxims. Fathers in dyads, compared to mothers in dyads, tended to react moreoften to violations. Mothers, by not responding to violations as often as fathers,may have been concerned that children partake in the discourse, despite theviolations. This interpretation is consistent with Bates' (1975) analyses of moth-er-child discourse in a play situation. Mothers in dyads tried to engage childrenin discourse, despite their violations, by attempting to use clarification strategies.For example, a mother in a dyad tried to engage her child in a fantasy dialoguewith the props when she said of a toy animal:

M: Do you want to put him to bed?

The child responded to the utterance, but in the process committed relationviolation by not answering the question:

D: It's cold in here Mom.

The mother responded with a clarification in order to sustain the discourse:

M: Let's cover him up in the bed then.

Through the use of such clarification and no-response strategies, mothers seem tobe most concerned with sustaining discourse with their child. Mothers oftenaccommodated to the topic introduced in the violations by the child, as shown inthe aforementioned example, in order to sustain discourse.

Fathers' reactions to violations when they were in dyads, on the other hand,

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f K

iel]

at 0

6:34

26

Oct

ober

201

4

104 PELLEGRINI, BRODY, AND STONEMAN

indicated a more directive role in the dyadic context; they notified (throughrepetition and modeling correct responses and sometimes through clarification)children of their violations. It should be noted, however, that fathers used certaindidactic strategies with certain ages of children. That is, though fathers morefrequently reacted to violations as a whole, they used repetitions with 2-year-oldsand modeling for all three age groups. There was no difference between mothersin dyads and fathers in dyads in their use of clarifications. Such patterns, usingmodeling and clarification, are clearly illustrated in the following father-sondialogues:

F: This is a gas, isn't it?S: (No response)F: Well, I think it's fun. (Modeling)

F: This dinosaur looks scary.S: This house is like mine.F: Do you have a dinosaur too? (Clarification)

By using these response strategies, the fathers, too, demonstrated concern thatthe children be involved in the discourse. For example, by repeating violationsfathers both notified children of the violation and gave them an opportunity toparticipate appropriately. Such a sequence of conversational events (i.e., par-ent's utterance, child's contingent response, and parent's comment on child'sresponse) is reminiscent of strategies used by teachers with their preschool andelementary school children (Camaioni, 1979; Mehan, 1978; Sinclair & Coult-hard, 1975).

The third objective was to examine parents' reactions to violations in differentinteractional contexts. Parents' differential reactions to children's violations oc-curred only in the dyadic contexts. When both parents were together with thechild in a triad there were no differences between parents in their reaction toviolations. This is consistent with earlier work (Clarke-Stewart, 1978; Golinkoff& Ames, 1979; Pellegrini et al., 1985a,b; Stoneman & Brody, 1981) suggestingthat in triads fathers relinquish their directive role and accommodate to mothers'interactional style. This interaction pattern can be explained in terms of powerand exchange theory (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). Generally, this theory statesthat different family members contribute different resources to different familycontexts. Possession of specific resources in a context is related to a person'spower in that context. Mothers are typically recognized as possessing child-related family resources (Stoneman & Brody, 1981). Mothers, as noted above,tended to engage in nondirective interactions with their children. When fathersentered the mother-child dyads they accommodated to the mothers' style.

Because parental behavior varied significantly as a function of the interac-tional context, researchers concerned with parent-child interaction should payclose attention to the context of the interaction. Parents may display different

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f K

iel]

at 0

6:34

26

Oct

ober

201

4

MAXIMS 105

behaviors with their children in teaching contexts than in play contexts (e.g.,Bates, 1975). Further, children's communicative competence varies according tothe location of the observation (e.g., Pellegrini, 1983) and the topics they areexpected to discuss (e.g., Pellegrini et al., 1984; Shatz, 1978). Indeed, a limita-tion of the present study is that families were observed only in a laboratoryplaying with a specific set of toys. In short, discourse is exceptionally sensitiveto contextual variation. Research describing children's communicative compe-tence in different contexts is needed to construct a total picture of children'spragmatic proficiency. Researchers should include as part of their descriptions ofcontexts their informational processing demands.

REFERENCES

Ackerman, B. (1981). When is a question not answered? The understanding of young children ofutterances violating or conforming to the rules of conversational sequencing. Journal ofExperimental Child Psychology, 31, 487-507.

Bates, E. (1975). The development of conversational skills in 2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds. PragmaticsMicrofile, 1 (2).

Block, J.H. (1983). Differential premises arising from differential socialization of the sexes: Someconjectures. Child Development, 54, 1335-1354.

Bloom, L., Rociassano, L., & Hood, L. (1976). Adult-child discourse: Developmental interactionbetween information processing and linguistic knowledge. Cognitive Psychology, 8, 521-552.

Brown, R. (1973). A first language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Camaioni, L. (1979). Child-adult and child-child conversations. In C. Ochs & B. Schieffelin (Eds.),

Developmental pragmatics (pp. 325-338). New York: Academic.Clark, E. (1983). Meanings and concepts. In J. Flavell & E. Markman (Eds.), Handbook of child

psychology (Vol. 3, pp. 787-840). New York: Wiley.Clarke-Stewart, K. (1978). And daddy makes three: The father's impact on mother and young child.

Child Development, 49, 466-478.Dore, J. (1977). Oh them sheriff: A pragmatic analysis of children's responses to questions. In S.

Ervin-Tripp & L. Mitchell-Kernan (Eds.), Child discourse (pp. 139-164). New York:Academic.

Garvey, C. (1977). The contingency query: A dependent act in conversation. In M. Lewis & L.Rosenblum (Eds.), Interaction, conversation, and the development of language (pp. 63-93).New York: Wiley.

Garvey, C. (1979). Contingency queries and their relations in discourse. In E. Ochs & B. Schieffelin(Eds.), Developmental pragmatics (pp. 363-372). New York: Wiley.

Golinkoff, R., & Ames, G. (1979). A comparison of fathers' and mothers' speech with their youngchildren. Child Development, 50, 28-32.

Grice, H.P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics(Vol. 3, pp. 41-58). New York: Academic.

Huston, A. (1983). Sex-typing. In E.M. Hetherington (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology (Vol. 4,pp. 387-468). New York: Wiley.

Levinson, S. (1983). Pragmatics. London: Cambridge University Press.Maccoby, E. (1980). Social development. New York: Harcourt, Brace, & Jovanovich.Maccoby, E., & Martin, J. (1983). Socialization in the context of the family: Parent-child interac-

tion. In E. Hetherington (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology (Vol. 4, pp. 1-102). NewYork: Wiley.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f K

iel]

at 0

6:34

26

Oct

ober

201

4

106 PELLEGRINI, BRODY, AND STONEMAN

Maratsos, M. (1983). Some current issues in the study of the acquisition of grammar. In J. Flavell &E. Markman (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (Vol. 3, pp. 707-786). New York:Wiley.

Mehan, H. (1978). Learning lessons. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Pellegrini, A. (1981). One aspect of the development of preschoolers' communicative competence:

Specific answers to specific questions. Psychological Reports, 49, 581-582.Pellegrini, A. (1983). The sociolinguistic context of the preschool. Journal of Applied Developmen-

tal Psychology, 4, 397-405.Pellegrini, A. (1986). Play centers and the production of imaginative language. Discourse Processes,

9, 115-125.Pellegrini, A., Galda, L., & Rubin, D. (1984). Context in text: The development of oral and written

language in two genres. Child Development, 55, 1549-1555.Pellegrini, A., Sigel, I., & Brody, G. (1985a). Parents' bookreading habits with their children.

Journal of Educational Psychology, 77, 332-340.Pellegrini, A., Sigel, I., & Brody, G. (1985b). Parents' teaching strategies with their children: The

effects of parent and child status variables. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 14, 509-521.

Shatz, M. (1978). The relationship between cognitive processes and the development of communica-tion skills. In C.B. Keasey (Ed.), 1977 Nebraska symposium on motivation (pp. 1-42).Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Shatz, M. (1983). Communication. In J. Flavell & E. Markman (Eds.), Handbook of child psychol-ogy (Vol. 3, pp. 841-890). New York: Wiley.

Sinclair, J., & Coulthard, M. (1975). Towards an analysis of discourse. London: Oxford UniversityPress.

Steffenson, M. (1978). Satisfying inquisitive adults: Some simple methods for answering yes/noquestions. Journal of Child Language, 5, 221-236.

Stoneman, Z., & Brody, G. (1981). Two's company, three makes a difference: An examination ofmothers' and fathers' speech to their young children. Child Development, 52, 705-707.

Wilkinson, L.C., Wilkinson, A.C., Spinelli, F., & Chiang, C.P. (1984). Metalinguistic knowledgeof pragmatic rules in school-age children. Child Development, 55, 2130-2140.

Winer, B. (1971). Statistical principles in experimental design. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f K

iel]

at 0

6:34

26

Oct

ober

201

4